The Shattered Silhouette
by Kaelir of Lorien
Summary: Mycroft could not have done it. His strength lay in connections, not sacrifice. In submission, Sherlock was a stronger man than he. Post-Reichenbach, and a Mycroft character study. Oneshot.


**Author's Note: **_This is a companion piece to Setep Ka Tawy's _From A Distance_, post-Reichenbach. Please read Setep's story first, if you can! They really are meant to go together. It is also something of a character study of the enigma that is Mycroft Holmes._

_If you like this piece, and Setep's, please also take a look at _Returning To Tomorrow (_found on Setep Ka Tawy's profile)_, _a post-Reichenbach plot-arc collaboration between the two of us, which is going strong. Your comments on that would be wonderful. _

_Enjoy, and as always your thoughts (reviews!) are greatly appreciated._

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**The Shattered Silhouette**

Somewhere, in a silent room of an almost silent house, a man stood quietly. His silhouette – hands clasped neatly, tightly, behind his back, chin raised, perfectly-tailored jacket loosened to create a few unlawful folds – stood framed starkly against a high French window, like a statue that has found itself suddenly out of place. He was still. Each breath that left his lips was measured, but without thought. It was a pose, it was poise, and it was far, far more natural than any slip of the polished mask.

He shifted his weight, and the slight rustle of his clothing was loud, as loud to his ears as if he had taken a few heavy steps along the gleaming edge of the floor. He could hear everything in this room; even the thick, dizzyingly patterned Oriental carpet and the rich wood panelling that marched along the walls could not fill enough of the empty space to muffle the echoes, for it was a very large room. It was a front room, and front rooms always had to drip grandeur if they were to keep up the reputations of their masters.

And what a fragile thing it was, this social construction called reputation. For the first time, a bit of expression crept onto the face of Mycroft Holmes, drawing his arched brows down low over his eyes and twitching the corner of his mouth into a thin grimace. Some men gave little thought to their image in the eyes of the world, and right now, he could almost envy them. They did not care because they had nothing to care about. But to others, to shatter that mirror was to break not only the reflection but the reality itself.

Then the shards were ashes, scattered on the wind.

Falling slowly. Falling.

Movement, smooth and unhurried, slid through the corner of his peripheral vision, and with a soft sigh, he turned to face the window directly. Between the thin lead veins criss-crossing through the glass, he could see the wide, curved span of the drive, and, rolling to a stop upon it, the car. The car with its passenger – its prisoner.

For Mycroft was not quite so aloof as to try to delude himself about that particular aspect. He had known, almost from the very start of that dark, unexpected, quietly desperate conversation only a few days before, that this would be no temporary holiday. It was imprisonment. Sherlock Holmes needed to disappear, but the price was agonisingly high: his freedom, and – in all senses but the most literal – his life.

Mycroft could not have done it. His strength lay in connections, not sacrifice. In submission, Sherlock was a stronger man than he.

Now, he watched as the tall figure that was his brother stepped slowly from the passenger side of the car. Sherlock's features were hard to discern from this distance, but his body language was eloquent, and worrying – thin gloved hands drawing the long coat tighter about his slender frame, warding off a chill that Mycroft knew could not be from the air, for it had turned unexpectedly warm today; feet set in a stance that was hardly a stance at all, but a hesitant connection to the ground, as though Sherlock were half-contemplating flight; and then his head, turning with painful slowness to take in the elegant front of the manor house that would be his home and his prison for God only knew how long.

Mycroft felt his jaw tighten in an unanticipated jolt of sympathy. No, he could not have done this.

After a moment, his gaze flickered to the driver of the car. A blessing in disguise, Miss Molly Hooper. Socially inept, incredibly ignorant most of the time, and the only person Sherlock could possibly have turned to in the end – and for that, Mycroft privately felt that he owed her a debt he might never be able to repay. It was her ignorance, her blatant naïveté, that had saved her; too innocent and too selfless to see Moriarty's web, she had slipped through it almost unscathed while the rest of them floundered and tried to extricate themselves strand by strand. Unfounded faith was a liability, but there were times when Mycroft could hold himself out at arm's length and wish he had a little more of it.

A slight, deferential cough broke the stillness from somewhere behind him.

"He's here, Mr. Holmes. Shall I get the door, sir?"

Mycroft did not turn around, his steely eyes still fixed on Molly. Slowly his gaze slid back to Sherlock. Had his heart not been steadied and bound by years of discipline, it might have gone out to his brother in that moment.

"No," he said quietly. His own voice echoed back to him. "No, let him come – on his own."

"As you say, sir."

It was the right decision. Mycroft would not be the one who opened the door and bid his brother enter; Sherlock had made a series of decisions that would have broken any other man, and unless he was able to carry through of his own will, Mycroft would see him shatter.

All the same, he had to bite down a feeling of anxiety as Sherlock, with that peculiar stubbornness that was uniquely his, still did not walk any closer. A wind picked up; Mycroft watched as it propelled shudders through his brother's hair, coat, and scarf, and it must have sent a word from Molly tumbling through the air, too, for Sherlock twisted his head around to regard her for a moment.

With Sherlock's back to him, Mycroft again found his gaze drifting toward Molly, that inconspicuous angel from the morgue. She noticed him, this time; their eyes met, and he saw there a strange and sympathetic understanding, and beneath it, a soft unspoken question.

He nodded, once.

Her uncertain lips twitched up slightly in a trembling, watery smile. Sherlock must have seen it, too, for he turned abruptly again, and Mycroft found himself looking directly into his brother's pale, shadowed eyes.

Neither of them moved for a long moment. He knew why. They were both seeking some sort of understanding, but by the time Sherlock broke eye contact and moved out of view, Mycroft was not at all sure if they had found it. He bit his lip, too hard, and tasted blood.

He was standing at the edge of the front hall when the door opened; he watched the gilded handle turn downward, and could imagine the black-gloved palm pushing it reluctantly from the other side. Sherlock swung the door open just wide enough to slip through, and closed it again with uncharacteristic care behind his back. He took one, two, three steps across the polished floor before stopping again. His form looked rigid beneath the coat.

"Sherlock."

The only response he got to that was a slight, barely perceptible twitch of Sherlock's head, and had he been anyone else, he thought he might have imagined it. But in a man of his brother's control, every movement was telling – if you knew what to look for. Mycroft let out his breath very slowly and walked forward.

"I've made what arrangements I can," he began, keeping his tone low. "We may have to look further into the matter of the press, but as far as – "

He knew it was useless, though, as soon as he forced himself to actually take in his brother's expression. There was something there he had never seen before, something anguished and oddly frightening – and despite the façade of emotional and physical mastery, Mycroft had never seen Sherlock Holmes look so vulnerable.

He dropped his gaze. He didn't want to read that expression. "We'll talk later."

He felt rather than saw Sherlock brush past him, and could hear the tightness of his brother's steps as they retreated further into the house. Another soft sigh escaped his lips.

Sherlock would be silent for a week, maybe more. He would keep to himself, and would learn the shortcuts and the small, isolated rooms of the manor by heart. He would stoke a fire in one of the hearths, and sit for hours at a time, long after the embers had gone cold. And then, one day – night, probably – he would break.

Whether it would be anger or impossible tears, Mycroft didn't know, but he did know it would happen; and he would stand outside the door, open slightly because it had been slammed so hard that it flew back again, and he would suffer a pain he seldom allowed himself to feel.

He would say nothing.

And the next morning, Sherlock would speak – something short and caustic, and utterly meaningless – and Mycroft would know the healing had begun.

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_Many thanks for reading! I reiterate: thoughts and reviews are always appreciated._


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